Meredith Goldstein is an advice columnist and entertainment reporter for The Boston Globe. Her advice column, Love Letters, is a daily dispatch of wisdom for the lovelorn that has been running online and in the paper for eight years. Meredith’s first novel, The Singles(2012), was about a group of dateless guests at a wedding. In 2018 she’ll release two books: “Can’t Help Myself: Lessons and Confessions From a Modern Advice Columnist,” a memoir (Grand Central), and Chemistry Lessons (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), a young adult novel about a young woman who uses science to manipulate her love life.

For seventeen-year-old Maya, the equation for happiness is simple: a dream internship at MIT + two new science nerd friends + a perfect boyfriend = one amazing summer. Then Whit dumps her out of the blue.

Maya is miserable until she discovers that her scientist mother, before she died, was conducting research on manipulating pheromones to enhance human attraction. If Maya can finish her mother’s work, maybe she can get Whit back. But when her experiment creates chaos in her love life, she realizes that maybe love and loss can’t be understood using the scientific method. Can she learn to trust the unmeasurables of love and attraction instead?

It was a very big deal – because I don't smell much of anything, ever.

My nose is almost always stuffed up because of allergies. Usually, when people say, “Oh … that smells so good,” about flowers or some tasty looking plate of food, I have to take their word for it.

But when I walked down Main Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts one afternoon years ago, I was overwhelmed by the scent. It was chocolate - everywhere. “A chocolate explosion,” I whispered to myself.

It smelled like candy bar insides. Like heaven. The scent seemed to cover an entire block.

I looked up an down the street to identify where the magic scent might be coming from, but couldn’t find any clues. No bakery. No ice cream shop. Nothing sweet.

All I saw was a nondescript factory building. No one coming in or out. The windows gave nothing away.

Eventually, I googled the address, and then I found the sign. It was a business called Cambridge Brands, a company responsible for making Tootsie Rolls.

Tootsie Rolls were being made just miles from my house!

Massachusetts gets a lot of attention for its history in the American Revolution, but some of its more recent past involves the creation of candy and sweets. Necco used to make its confectionaries in Cambridge. (Link here: https://cambridgehistory.org/candy/necco.html) Fluff, that weird-yet-perfect marshmallow spread, was invented in Somerville.

When I began writing Chemistry Lessons, a YA novel about a young scientist who tries to manipulate her love life with pheromones, I knew I wanted to involve as many smells as possible. And my favorite scent – the one around Cambridge Brands – happens to be right down the street from the lab building where my main character, Maya, would do her experiment at MIT.

In the book, Maya finds comfort in the chocolate explosion on Main Street. She and her friends call it a “whiff walk.”

Now, when I visit the neighborhood to enjoy the scent, I feel like I’m there with her.

If you ever come to Boston, I recommend making a special trip to the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Main Street in Cambridge to take a whiff walk of your own. Visit the MIT Museum, which is nearby. Check out the old Necco building. Then head to Main Street and inhale. You won’t be disappointed.

Hi, YABCers! Today we're super excited to celebrate the cover reveal for ALL THE STARS DENIED by Guadalupe García McCall , releasing on September 2018 from Tu Books . Before we get to the reveal, her...

Hi, YABCers! Today we're super excited to celebrate the cover reveal for THE BLUE WITCH by Alane Adams, releasing on October 23, 2018 from Spark Press . Before we get to the reveal, here's a note fro...

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